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Description

It’s now the time I talk about movies in production order. This time, I will start off with an animation studio that caught my interest; Sony Pictures Animation. What caught my attention with Sony is that there’s a fellow who gets triggered whenever much of the company’s films exist and at one time got bashed on this site due to his “bias” against that company. That alongside a colorful catalog of great to horrible movies, this looks like an interesting start for a separate movie scorecard. Remember my miscellaneous movies scorecard? 3 of these movies (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Emoji Movie, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) were part of said scorecard only to reside here (and maybe some other scorecards) forever. All of this looks pretty elaborate for a little history with the company so are y’all bready for this? Get it? It’s a food pun and hated those in Cloudy 2. Okay maybe I should stop addressing him and these puns and go right along with my history with Sony Pictures Animation.
HISTORY

For each individual movie I’ve seen before I reviewed the company as a whole (movies only), I’ve had different experiences with each film. Of these films, I shall explain my memories with plenty of these movies. Some may have similar experiences that I might as well group them with other films.

Open Season: The only thing I remember from this movie is when McSquizzy cried “Freedom!” while riding on Mr. Weenie in the climax. I assume watching a part of the movie on Cartoon Network and it included this line.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: I remember this movie much more than the last one. I think I saw it in theaters back when it was released, but what I definitely acknowledge from my childhood is that this movie would come out pretty often on Cartoon Network back in its “Check It” era. I also remember there being a clip of the movie playing on a Christmas ad that aired on aforementioned channel as well as the song “Sunshine, Lollipops, & Rainbows” playing in one scene in the movie. This movie actually introduced me to that song and I sporadically listened to the song at different times since mostly for its groove.

Any movie excluding Hotel Transylvania 2 that were released in 2011-2015: Self-explanatory; I watched these films in theater. This was during a time when I would watch almost every wide-released animated film at the time. The reason why I stopped is simply that I was growing older and that I grew out of cartoons back then. Even when I became interested in them again, I still didn’t watch animated movies in theaters as frequent as I did back then.

The Smurfs 2/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: These are a special case. Like with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, they introduced me to a little song that played in the scene or trailer; “Tutti Frutti” by Buckwheat Zydeco in the former and “Home” by Vince Staples for the latter. I once became addicted to these songs.

The Emoji Movie: I certainly did not watch the film when it came out, but I did mention it a few times in DeviantArt; one time was when I was asking people if they’re going to see the movie and another was when I said that the film is overhated.

And those were the films I remember I experienced before I reviewed the company. Speaking of reviewing the company, how did I watch all of these movies? Apparently, I used a bunch of sources to watch these films. They include Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and Google Play. There were times when I had to get another streaming service to watch some films (I had to buy an add-on for Hulu to watch The Smurfs and The Pirates! Band of Misfits) and at one point where my father’s Amazon account became locked due to credit card fraud. Because of this, I ended up using Google Play instead.
PIE CHART ANALYSIS

It looks fairly colorful. One thing to describe the pie chart that seems to define the company is that it’s a mixed bag. The pie chart very fittingly describes that as 50% of one half is recommendable and the other is not. Of all these ratings, none of the average ratings (besides Ample) were rated on any of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies yet.

Starting our ride on the negative side, only one movie is heinous. How low the company can get is that bad, but how typically bad its films are aren’t really that bad. But still, they’re still boring enough to be mediocre.

The MEHs indicate that the Middling rating is only present as of right now. And speaking of Middling, all of them are mixed bags which comes to show that a movie that’s in the middle is most likely to become a mixed bag.

And now it’s time to talk about the positives. This is a really interesting pie chart since the negatives are more varied. But with the positives, there are only three of them; Ample, Good, and Magnificent. A bunch of the good movies weren’t that good to be greats, but Sony at its strength created 3 blessed movies with all of them being you guessed it. Whenever there’s a great Sony Pictures Animation movie, it tends to be really good.

A pie chart that greatly defines a mixed bag with the pie chart being 50/50 makes the look of this pie chart rather fascinating.

Before I review the company, there’s something I would like to say; all of these movies (unless part of a film franchise) aren’t related to each other too much like how a series’ episodes would. Because of this, it makes it a bit challenging to craft a legitimate review for a company like Sony Pictures Animation where they produce movies that aren’t linked to one another.

But like what I said in my Almost Complete Cartoon Network Pilots Scorecard, “the What a Cartoon! show, have a majority of its shorts sharing many things in common that makes them linked enough as review-able”. With this said, that means that there are plenty of things that these movies have in common regardless of having a different style from one another. And I can perhaps touch upon some of the company’s franchises on the way. So that doesn’t mean that it’s all over because I want to talk about what Sony Pictures Animation does right and wrong.

And one last thing before I dive right into the review of Sony Pictures Animation as a whole, there will be no first thoughts on the company or its films because that would mean that the description will be way too lengthy. And now, let’s discuss about Sony’s animation division:
WRITING

To kick off how I would describe what Sony Pictures Animation’s movies have in common when it comes with their writing, there are definitely cons and pros. Perhaps some of these aren’t what I’d usually see in shows.

One of these aspects that Sony Pictures Animation attempts and really makes useful is that in the climax, a lot of moments in the movie would link to each other. Of these moments, they would consist of minor conflicts our main characters would struggle with at the beginning like trying to be a stronger person or even a small piece of object that doesn’t seem useful but to indicate a hint of storytelling. All of this creates some smart foreshadowing.

Within the climaxes, they would have a good amount of fun and creativity within them as they contain the aforementioned foreshadowing as well as pumping up a lot of plot twists to really make them engaging. The different styles of the climaxes would consist of either a dance battle (Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation) or smaller creatures vs humans (the first two Open Season movies, The Smurfs, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2).

Some of the settings within the movies would have interesting and creative characteristics. In all thanks to the director’s wild creativity being the star of the movie, they innovated a lot of immersive and very elaborate settings to give depth to the world around it. The Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Emoji Movie are perfect examples of these due to how they often use exaggeration to creative their own environments. Whether it’d be the world the FLDSMDFR created where it’s an ecosystem of food animals from Cloudy 2 or taking apps like Candy Crush and Instagram and mash them into a walk-around setting with The Emoji Movie, they all share marvelous worldbuilding.

Unfortunately, a good chunk of SPA’s library is juvenile enough to get away with some quirks. Some of these films ended up having a decent amount of clichés in them that can make them pretty predictable. Thinking about it, this applies to much of their earlier films where it somehow involves an underdog story at first. Apparently, Surf’s Up is the most clichéd out of all of the other movies.

Some of the company’s decisions can lead to them making sequels off their films and for the most part, they come out as hit-miss. Looking at the ratings, they at first were redundant and unnecessary (the Open Season and Surf’s Up sequels), but then more came along and it turns out they copied a lot of plot elements from their predecessor.

However, what made them better is that the directing of these films improved drastically where it makes the previous installments look like the worst of Sony. In fact, the directing at Sony Pictures Animation improved overtime and I began to notice it once The Emoji Movie came in.

But with the ones that didn’t improve (and perhaps some more of these films) is that they came across with a good chunk of continuity errors. There are plenty of examples to this, but I would say that the more noteworthy of these comes to how they play a role in the plot. In Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania, Cody said that the Hang Five is his idol, despite in the previous film, it said that Zeke was his idol, ditching him completely in that film. And in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Dracula suddenly zinged again despite the franchise stating (and this film multiple times) that a monster can only zing once. Why did he zing again, though? I have no clue.

I’m not quite done with sequels yet because I would have a word with the Open Season movies. If there’s a positive I can pluck out of at least all of them, is that they have some clever misunderstandings from the animals, misinterpreting human behavior as psychopathic or chaotic.

One aspect I know critics hate in movies are product placement. Sony Pictures Animation loves using this in their movies (notably The Smurfs films and The Emoji Movie), but as long as their purpose is reasonable as they’re implemented to capture the feeling of that setting and doesn’t serve as filler, I’m alright with them. Otherwise, what’s even the point of them being here other than to be relevant?

Verdict: How did Sony’s library compare? Well, they consist of some unique form of foreshadowing, creativity, and great worldbuilding, but also being clichéd especially with their older films, and greenlighting pointless sequels and product placement with both of them coming out as hit-miss.
HUMOR

Since most of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies are comedies and that they appeal towards kids, there is gags commonly seen within almost every single one of their films. But how are they? About as hit-miss as the sequels and product placement.

Like the settings, they tend to have some creativity within them. It can involve activities you normally see in real life and have animals be part of them or even how it can handle puns. Here, it can be pretty literal that also makes them pretty good with them taking a good portion of the gags from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.

For the timing of their gags, they ended up working well enough to crank up the energy of the movie. It often involves characters waving their arms and limbs and it honestly doesn’t bother me. You’ll see the best timing in the Cloudy and Hotel Transylvania films (and good humor is perhaps the reason why the latter is a Gumball Syndrome series. I’d say on this site, it’s fairly popular to like the franchise than to dislike it)

But as to make a pretty stereotypical kids flick, you’ll still encounter plenty of lowbrow humor, specifically potty jokes. I’d say it’s clear that Sony likes to poke fun at animals pooping (and even at one time try to eat it) and farting, but then there’s the creativity and it can make some of them work like how films like The Emoji Movie try to imply farting.

And one last thing to discuss regarding the humor’s quality (and yes, this is a pretty short section) is the running gags. It can commonly involve one character (aka the buttmonkey) and like the potty jokes, it depends on how it’s executed. Audibly, it becomes fairly annoying as it’s mostly the same thing again and again with it being predictable several more times it pops up (the Smurfs saying “smurf” in sentences in the live-action Smurfs movies)

Verdict: Sony Pictures Animation is a really hit-miss studio and the humor continues to exemplify that. At times, it can be creative and contain good timing to really boost up the energy of the movies but otherwise, tiresome is afloat with some of the gags.
QUALITY

Ah yes, the quality. SPA’s library is a mix between animated and live-action animation hybrids. For each of them, this section will be split between my thoughts on the quality of their animated movies, their live-action films, and eventually what they both have in common.

(ANIMATED)

When talking about their animated films visually, a vast variety of their movies have their own style where they explore various other places that ended up looking fascinating. At best, they can get colorful. Like really colorful to where the films have great amount of variety with its color schemes. This especially applies to the best films they’ve made thanks to the previously mentioned worldbuilding and creativity that excellently captures the setting for what it is.

Now there is one style that seems to stand out and that would be the cartoony animation. Well, it technically isn’t that bothersome to handle and how it executes also depends on the humor’s help where it ended up making the timing of the jokes work. Of course, the movie (this includes the aforementioned film franchises) is cartoony throughout to where the character animation can be stiff but I really like their energy here.

Especially with their older films, there would be filters and effects to capture the nature of the scene and how the studio manages them makes it look so impressive enough to be ahead of its time when it comes to animation. It could be film grains, photographs, or blurriness to get that sense of realism and theming in their films. It also applies to the different color hues utilized within a setting like hot pink.

As for the direct-to-video releases’ animation, it’s no surprise that the quality is a steep downgrade from their predecessor’s. The editing and effects in the visuals aren't as convincing as the theatrical releases and at times, the effects can look very out-of-place with their contrasting colors and poor blending. Also, the animation appears to be stiffer as if they were meant for TV.

Then there’s the voice acting which unlike the other aspects of the quality is hit-miss just like some of the other aspects I talked about. What makes some of them good is that they have a style to them which adds some charm to the quality. But other times, it mostly consists of bland acting as if they’re not interested in the roles they’re taking part of. Also, the casting for some of the characters are pretty unusual at first like with Adam Sandler as Dracula from the Hotel Transylvania films since I don’t remember him doing this decent of a Dracula impression and Rainn Wilson as Gargamel from Smurfs: the Lost Village as he portrays him as a generic villain.

Verdict: With most of their films, they have at least a bit of charm in them with them being colorful and experimenting with their own style and making it pay off. However, the voice acting can either be bland or have charm like the other aspects.

(LIVE-ACTION)

With Sony Pictures Animation’s live-action films (The Smurfs movies, the Goosebumps films, and Peter Rabbit), they all at least have one thing; visual effects. How they look on the big screen look pretty good with a great amount of textures on them.

It can especially look neat with the fast-paced moments where the animation on the characters would use their size to their advantage to interact with real-life objects. Plus, them blending in with the moving camera angles makes it look more neat.

But then you have the acting and with the company’s first live-action films, they don’t tend to do a very good job. Some of them don’t display much of an energy to be in the movie and what’s more baffling is that the more important live-actors would randomly smile at times as if they feel awkward being in a bad movie (Neil Patrick Harris in The Smurfs and Dylan Minnette in Goosebumps).

However, the time Peter Rabbit came in was when the acting became more energetic and unpredictable that it ended up making some funny live-action characters who feel like they’re acting other than the fact that they’re doing their job. This is where Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween came in and improved the acting a lot from its predecessor due to it having actual jokes from well-acted actors who knows how to deliver these gags.

Verdict: Visually, they look neat especially with the amount of energy in them. But with the acting, it’s like the voice acting where the actors can either have style or no style.

(BOTH)

Both of these films mostly have these things; great sound editing, nice lighting, and pop songs.

With the first one listed, the sound editing is absolutely impressive. The effort the crew put into making them sound realistic while at the same time blend with the surroundings really works, especially if the film has fantasy elements to make it challenging for the crew to interpret. The Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movies have food hitting on the ground and weather, The Smurfs films have the magic of the wand as well as settings being destroyed, but out of all the movies, I was completely astonished at the effort Surf’s Up has done with the waves and surfing that it ended up making the surfing scenes look stunning.

However, the sounds do come out with some duds and at times stock sound effects can be heard which is especially noticeable with door creeks and slapstick. In other cases, it can sound grainy enough to be too low in quality for a movie.

As time progressed as the technology became better, so does the lighting to capture every inch of detail on the character’s depth. It weirdly mixes with the cartoony animation styles of the Cloudy and Hotel Transylvania movies since those franchises look like films to be traditionally animated, but I’m rather nitpicking here since they do make up for it (alongside the other films) with some neat vibrancy. When it comes to vibrancy, I especially think about Smurfs: the Lost Village due to how the color schemes look bright and glorious.

Then there are the pop songs which can be out-of-place as they’re tossed in to be pretty cringy with their purpose to be cool and hip with children (often the case with the Hotel Transylvania films). But if it isn’t a pop song, then the tone and genre of the song implemented into the film fits the atmosphere pretty well.

Verdict: With both animated and live-action films, they each have great sound editing and lighting but at the same time can be pretty lazy or just plain awkward.
CHARACTERS

I will take on some names with some of the characters I talk about. Speaking of which, since a bunch of these movies differ with the quality of the characters, I don’t know how to describe them. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to skip this section entirely.

Let’s talk about the main characters first. Usually, they would often be considered the underdog who appears to be a loser in front of everyone at first but then succeeded due to a thing he did. This cliché is especially the case of SPA’s earlier films which includes Cody from Surf’s Up and Flint from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. However, they somehow work due to them having a charm thanks to their development and energy.

But that isn’t the only character trope that was Sony Pictures Animation’s favorite at one point, there are a few more; you have the jock character also appearing in Sony’s earlier films and also the pointless love interest just there to motivate the main character further.

But what about Sony Pictures Animation’s more recent films? Actually, I’d say plenty of the main leads start off as a bit one-dimensional only to gain stronger development overtime (Miles from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a perfect example of that while Zach from the first Goosebumps film is that but with even less development). The latter of which joins a cast of bland role-models that I can easily forget, alongside Bo from The Star.

To make the main characters better, the sequels nobody asked for ended up exploring more of the main lead including the other ones to make them more fascinating than ever, whether it’d be looking more at Flint’s past in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 or talk about the origin of Smurfette in both The Smurfs 2 and Smurfs: The Lost Village.

That’s just one character from the movie, but there’s more. Speaking of more, SPA’s movies have a HUGE cast of characters which some of them having enough screen time to show a moment of glory for themselves. And with that being said, the movie would deliver depth into their personalities and characteristics of who they are and for the most part they work decently.

Unfortunately, there might be too many of them where it just makes them feel pointless, which includes a good chunk of the animals from the Open Season movies and Drac’s friends in Hotel Transylvania. However, there is at one point where the cast is too big but it makes sense and that would be Spider-Verse’s case since it wants to elaborate and explore more of the other Spider-Mans. After all, it is called “Into the Spider-Verse”.

Of the big cast of characters, there would often be a butt-monkey within much of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies who are there to serve as running gags. You know, to spice up the humor? There were some that really work due to variety such as the bunnies from the Open Season movies and the singing birds from Peter Rabbit, but then you have characters like the zombie employees from Hotel Transylvania whose appearances are predictable as their gullible and dumb outcome just don’t work.

What Sony Pictures Animation would do in order to improve the character development of our main characters is by chemistry. By that, it would usually include characters with contrasting characteristics fighting at first due to a disagreement, but they soon to later adapt to each other where it makes them get used to each other. It would include an energetic character who is bothering the practical and determined character wanting to make sure his motive goes the way he planned, but as their bond improved as the latter realized something the former did was useful, he/she ended up getting some development on the way. This is how I ended up liking characters like Boog from Open Season and Dracula from Hotel Transylvania more due to that; they’re written to understand other people.

Verdict: As Sony Pictures Animation crafted pretty bland and forgettable characters at first with pretty similar characteristics, the amount of depth, development, and chemistry put within these characters help make them more relatable and interesting.
FINAL THOUGHTS

The scorecard says that the studio is very hit-miss with its content. The review also says that the studio is very hit-miss with its content. It looks like Sony Pictures Animation knows how to make a movie good and also how to make a movie bad. They know how to make a film good by making it really funny alongside adding it with great creativity and action while also know how to mess up its potential by being boring, pretty contrived, and plain redundant. What would I say about Sony Pictures Animation in summary form? I think I already said it, but not quite to the fullest I desired.
It really depends on what Sony Pictures Animation would craft. At one hand, it can be a harmless and funny movie with excellent creativity and world building and well-detailed and colorful animation that might as well be ahead of its time, but on the other hand, the studio experiments too much with a product that almost completely wastes its potential by being clichéd and dull, be unconvincingly cheap and lazy, carry pointless things like product placement without clarifying their purpose or don’t care if the actors don’t put effort into their acting that it all becomes something underwhelming.
Although Sony Pictures Animation is one thing and not multiple reincarnations, there is no final rating for the studio as a whole. Let’s just say that it depends on whether or not if the movie’s good or bad because I believe that’s what a typical film company’s library is; a big mixed bag so it’s no surprise that the final rating is obvious. For me, I'd rather rate franchises than entire companies because their library is often distinct from one another.

Epilogue: Not bad for a movie scorecard? There will slowly be more overtime as my passion towards movie is growing and since there are a couple of live-action movies in this scorecard, it’ll hint something that’s coming ahead since this is only one of the first live-action scorecards although not all of it is live-action. And one last thing; I never mentioned Arthur Christmas or The Pirates! Band of Misfits in the description not counting the history section and do you know why? Well, since they’re Aardman properties and that Sony basically distributed them, both films feel really different from Sony Pictures Animation’s other films and more towards Aardman media. If I review Aardman someday, perhaps I’ll talk about these films more.

Description

It’s now the time I talk about movies in production order. This time, I will start off with an animation studio that caught my interest; Sony Pictures Animation. What caught my attention with Sony is that there’s a fellow who gets triggered whenever much of the company’s films exist and at one time got bashed on this site due to his “bias” against that company. That alongside a colorful catalog of great to horrible movies, this looks like an interesting start for a separate movie scorecard. Remember my miscellaneous movies scorecard? 3 of these movies (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Emoji Movie, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) were part of said scorecard only to reside here (and maybe some other scorecards) forever. All of this looks pretty elaborate for a little history with the company so are y’all bready for this? Get it? It’s a food pun and hated those in Cloudy 2. Okay maybe I should stop addressing him and these puns and go right along with my history with Sony Pictures Animation.
HISTORY

For each individual movie I’ve seen before I reviewed the company as a whole (movies only), I’ve had different experiences with each film. Of these films, I shall explain my memories with plenty of these movies. Some may have similar experiences that I might as well group them with other films.

Open Season: The only thing I remember from this movie is when McSquizzy cried “Freedom!” while riding on Mr. Weenie in the climax. I assume watching a part of the movie on Cartoon Network and it included this line.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: I remember this movie much more than the last one. I think I saw it in theaters back when it was released, but what I definitely acknowledge from my childhood is that this movie would come out pretty often on Cartoon Network back in its “Check It” era. I also remember there being a clip of the movie playing on a Christmas ad that aired on aforementioned channel as well as the song “Sunshine, Lollipops, & Rainbows” playing in one scene in the movie. This movie actually introduced me to that song and I sporadically listened to the song at different times since mostly for its groove.

Any movie excluding Hotel Transylvania 2 that were released in 2011-2015: Self-explanatory; I watched these films in theater. This was during a time when I would watch almost every wide-released animated film at the time. The reason why I stopped is simply that I was growing older and that I grew out of cartoons back then. Even when I became interested in them again, I still didn’t watch animated movies in theaters as frequent as I did back then.

The Smurfs 2/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: These are a special case. Like with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, they introduced me to a little song that played in the scene or trailer; “Tutti Frutti” by Buckwheat Zydeco in the former and “Home” by Vince Staples for the latter. I once became addicted to these songs.

The Emoji Movie: I certainly did not watch the film when it came out, but I did mention it a few times in DeviantArt; one time was when I was asking people if they’re going to see the movie and another was when I said that the film is overhated.

And those were the films I remember I experienced before I reviewed the company. Speaking of reviewing the company, how did I watch all of these movies? Apparently, I used a bunch of sources to watch these films. They include Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and Google Play. There were times when I had to get another streaming service to watch some films (I had to buy an add-on for Hulu to watch The Smurfs and The Pirates! Band of Misfits) and at one point where my father’s Amazon account became locked due to credit card fraud. Because of this, I ended up using Google Play instead.
PIE CHART ANALYSIS

It looks fairly colorful. One thing to describe the pie chart that seems to define the company is that it’s a mixed bag. The pie chart very fittingly describes that as 50% of one half is recommendable and the other is not. Of all these ratings, none of the average ratings (besides Ample) were rated on any of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies yet.

Starting our ride on the negative side, only one movie is heinous. How low the company can get is that bad, but how typically bad its films are aren’t really that bad. But still, they’re still boring enough to be mediocre.

The MEHs indicate that the Middling rating is only present as of right now. And speaking of Middling, all of them are mixed bags which comes to show that a movie that’s in the middle is most likely to become a mixed bag.

And now it’s time to talk about the positives. This is a really interesting pie chart since the negatives are more varied. But with the positives, there are only three of them; Ample, Good, and Magnificent. A bunch of the good movies weren’t that good to be greats, but Sony at its strength created 3 blessed movies with all of them being you guessed it. Whenever there’s a great Sony Pictures Animation movie, it tends to be really good.

A pie chart that greatly defines a mixed bag with the pie chart being 50/50 makes the look of this pie chart rather fascinating.

Before I review the company, there’s something I would like to say; all of these movies (unless part of a film franchise) aren’t related to each other too much like how a series’ episodes would. Because of this, it makes it a bit challenging to craft a legitimate review for a company like Sony Pictures Animation where they produce movies that aren’t linked to one another.

But like what I said in my Almost Complete Cartoon Network Pilots Scorecard, “the What a Cartoon! show, have a majority of its shorts sharing many things in common that makes them linked enough as review-able”. With this said, that means that there are plenty of things that these movies have in common regardless of having a different style from one another. And I can perhaps touch upon some of the company’s franchises on the way. So that doesn’t mean that it’s all over because I want to talk about what Sony Pictures Animation does right and wrong.

And one last thing before I dive right into the review of Sony Pictures Animation as a whole, there will be no first thoughts on the company or its films because that would mean that the description will be way too lengthy. And now, let’s discuss about Sony’s animation division:
WRITING

To kick off how I would describe what Sony Pictures Animation’s movies have in common when it comes with their writing, there are definitely cons and pros. Perhaps some of these aren’t what I’d usually see in shows.

One of these aspects that Sony Pictures Animation attempts and really makes useful is that in the climax, a lot of moments in the movie would link to each other. Of these moments, they would consist of minor conflicts our main characters would struggle with at the beginning like trying to be a stronger person or even a small piece of object that doesn’t seem useful but to indicate a hint of storytelling. All of this creates some smart foreshadowing.

Within the climaxes, they would have a good amount of fun and creativity within them as they contain the aforementioned foreshadowing as well as pumping up a lot of plot twists to really make them engaging. The different styles of the climaxes would consist of either a dance battle (Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation) or smaller creatures vs humans (the first two Open Season movies, The Smurfs, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2).

Some of the settings within the movies would have interesting and creative characteristics. In all thanks to the director’s wild creativity being the star of the movie, they innovated a lot of immersive and very elaborate settings to give depth to the world around it. The Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Emoji Movie are perfect examples of these due to how they often use exaggeration to creative their own environments. Whether it’d be the world the FLDSMDFR created where it’s an ecosystem of food animals from Cloudy 2 or taking apps like Candy Crush and Instagram and mash them into a walk-around setting with The Emoji Movie, they all share marvelous worldbuilding.

Unfortunately, a good chunk of SPA’s library is juvenile enough to get away with some quirks. Some of these films ended up having a decent amount of clichés in them that can make them pretty predictable. Thinking about it, this applies to much of their earlier films where it somehow involves an underdog story at first. Apparently, Surf’s Up is the most clichéd out of all of the other movies.

Some of the company’s decisions can lead to them making sequels off their films and for the most part, they come out as hit-miss. Looking at the ratings, they at first were redundant and unnecessary (the Open Season and Surf’s Up sequels), but then more came along and it turns out they copied a lot of plot elements from their predecessor.

However, what made them better is that the directing of these films improved drastically where it makes the previous installments look like the worst of Sony. In fact, the directing at Sony Pictures Animation improved overtime and I began to notice it once The Emoji Movie came in.

But with the ones that didn’t improve (and perhaps some more of these films) is that they came across with a good chunk of continuity errors. There are plenty of examples to this, but I would say that the more noteworthy of these comes to how they play a role in the plot. In Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania, Cody said that the Hang Five is his idol, despite in the previous film, it said that Zeke was his idol, ditching him completely in that film. And in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Dracula suddenly zinged again despite the franchise stating (and this film multiple times) that a monster can only zing once. Why did he zing again, though? I have no clue.

I’m not quite done with sequels yet because I would have a word with the Open Season movies. If there’s a positive I can pluck out of at least all of them, is that they have some clever misunderstandings from the animals, misinterpreting human behavior as psychopathic or chaotic.

One aspect I know critics hate in movies are product placement. Sony Pictures Animation loves using this in their movies (notably The Smurfs films and The Emoji Movie), but as long as their purpose is reasonable as they’re implemented to capture the feeling of that setting and doesn’t serve as filler, I’m alright with them. Otherwise, what’s even the point of them being here other than to be relevant?

Verdict: How did Sony’s library compare? Well, they consist of some unique form of foreshadowing, creativity, and great worldbuilding, but also being clichéd especially with their older films, and greenlighting pointless sequels and product placement with both of them coming out as hit-miss.
HUMOR

Since most of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies are comedies and that they appeal towards kids, there is gags commonly seen within almost every single one of their films. But how are they? About as hit-miss as the sequels and product placement.

Like the settings, they tend to have some creativity within them. It can involve activities you normally see in real life and have animals be part of them or even how it can handle puns. Here, it can be pretty literal that also makes them pretty good with them taking a good portion of the gags from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.

For the timing of their gags, they ended up working well enough to crank up the energy of the movie. It often involves characters waving their arms and limbs and it honestly doesn’t bother me. You’ll see the best timing in the Cloudy and Hotel Transylvania films (and good humor is perhaps the reason why the latter is a Gumball Syndrome series. I’d say on this site, it’s fairly popular to like the franchise than to dislike it)

But as to make a pretty stereotypical kids flick, you’ll still encounter plenty of lowbrow humor, specifically potty jokes. I’d say it’s clear that Sony likes to poke fun at animals pooping (and even at one time try to eat it) and farting, but then there’s the creativity and it can make some of them work like how films like The Emoji Movie try to imply farting.

And one last thing to discuss regarding the humor’s quality (and yes, this is a pretty short section) is the running gags. It can commonly involve one character (aka the buttmonkey) and like the potty jokes, it depends on how it’s executed. Audibly, it becomes fairly annoying as it’s mostly the same thing again and again with it being predictable several more times it pops up (the Smurfs saying “smurf” in sentences in the live-action Smurfs movies)

Verdict: Sony Pictures Animation is a really hit-miss studio and the humor continues to exemplify that. At times, it can be creative and contain good timing to really boost up the energy of the movies but otherwise, tiresome is afloat with some of the gags.
QUALITY

Ah yes, the quality. SPA’s library is a mix between animated and live-action animation hybrids. For each of them, this section will be split between my thoughts on the quality of their animated movies, their live-action films, and eventually what they both have in common.

(ANIMATED)

When talking about their animated films visually, a vast variety of their movies have their own style where they explore various other places that ended up looking fascinating. At best, they can get colorful. Like really colorful to where the films have great amount of variety with its color schemes. This especially applies to the best films they’ve made thanks to the previously mentioned worldbuilding and creativity that excellently captures the setting for what it is.

Now there is one style that seems to stand out and that would be the cartoony animation. Well, it technically isn’t that bothersome to handle and how it executes also depends on the humor’s help where it ended up making the timing of the jokes work. Of course, the movie (this includes the aforementioned film franchises) is cartoony throughout to where the character animation can be stiff but I really like their energy here.

Especially with their older films, there would be filters and effects to capture the nature of the scene and how the studio manages them makes it look so impressive enough to be ahead of its time when it comes to animation. It could be film grains, photographs, or blurriness to get that sense of realism and theming in their films. It also applies to the different color hues utilized within a setting like hot pink.

As for the direct-to-video releases’ animation, it’s no surprise that the quality is a steep downgrade from their predecessor’s. The editing and effects in the visuals aren't as convincing as the theatrical releases and at times, the effects can look very out-of-place with their contrasting colors and poor blending. Also, the animation appears to be stiffer as if they were meant for TV.

Then there’s the voice acting which unlike the other aspects of the quality is hit-miss just like some of the other aspects I talked about. What makes some of them good is that they have a style to them which adds some charm to the quality. But other times, it mostly consists of bland acting as if they’re not interested in the roles they’re taking part of. Also, the casting for some of the characters are pretty unusual at first like with Adam Sandler as Dracula from the Hotel Transylvania films since I don’t remember him doing this decent of a Dracula impression and Rainn Wilson as Gargamel from Smurfs: the Lost Village as he portrays him as a generic villain.

Verdict: With most of their films, they have at least a bit of charm in them with them being colorful and experimenting with their own style and making it pay off. However, the voice acting can either be bland or have charm like the other aspects.

(LIVE-ACTION)

With Sony Pictures Animation’s live-action films (The Smurfs movies, the Goosebumps films, and Peter Rabbit), they all at least have one thing; visual effects. How they look on the big screen look pretty good with a great amount of textures on them.

It can especially look neat with the fast-paced moments where the animation on the characters would use their size to their advantage to interact with real-life objects. Plus, them blending in with the moving camera angles makes it look more neat.

But then you have the acting and with the company’s first live-action films, they don’t tend to do a very good job. Some of them don’t display much of an energy to be in the movie and what’s more baffling is that the more important live-actors would randomly smile at times as if they feel awkward being in a bad movie (Neil Patrick Harris in The Smurfs and Dylan Minnette in Goosebumps).

However, the time Peter Rabbit came in was when the acting became more energetic and unpredictable that it ended up making some funny live-action characters who feel like they’re acting other than the fact that they’re doing their job. This is where Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween came in and improved the acting a lot from its predecessor due to it having actual jokes from well-acted actors who knows how to deliver these gags.

Verdict: Visually, they look neat especially with the amount of energy in them. But with the acting, it’s like the voice acting where the actors can either have style or no style.

(BOTH)

Both of these films mostly have these things; great sound editing, nice lighting, and pop songs.

With the first one listed, the sound editing is absolutely impressive. The effort the crew put into making them sound realistic while at the same time blend with the surroundings really works, especially if the film has fantasy elements to make it challenging for the crew to interpret. The Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movies have food hitting on the ground and weather, The Smurfs films have the magic of the wand as well as settings being destroyed, but out of all the movies, I was completely astonished at the effort Surf’s Up has done with the waves and surfing that it ended up making the surfing scenes look stunning.

However, the sounds do come out with some duds and at times stock sound effects can be heard which is especially noticeable with door creeks and slapstick. In other cases, it can sound grainy enough to be too low in quality for a movie.

As time progressed as the technology became better, so does the lighting to capture every inch of detail on the character’s depth. It weirdly mixes with the cartoony animation styles of the Cloudy and Hotel Transylvania movies since those franchises look like films to be traditionally animated, but I’m rather nitpicking here since they do make up for it (alongside the other films) with some neat vibrancy. When it comes to vibrancy, I especially think about Smurfs: the Lost Village due to how the color schemes look bright and glorious.

Then there are the pop songs which can be out-of-place as they’re tossed in to be pretty cringy with their purpose to be cool and hip with children (often the case with the Hotel Transylvania films). But if it isn’t a pop song, then the tone and genre of the song implemented into the film fits the atmosphere pretty well.

Verdict: With both animated and live-action films, they each have great sound editing and lighting but at the same time can be pretty lazy or just plain awkward.
CHARACTERS

I will take on some names with some of the characters I talk about. Speaking of which, since a bunch of these movies differ with the quality of the characters, I don’t know how to describe them. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to skip this section entirely.

Let’s talk about the main characters first. Usually, they would often be considered the underdog who appears to be a loser in front of everyone at first but then succeeded due to a thing he did. This cliché is especially the case of SPA’s earlier films which includes Cody from Surf’s Up and Flint from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. However, they somehow work due to them having a charm thanks to their development and energy.

But that isn’t the only character trope that was Sony Pictures Animation’s favorite at one point, there are a few more; you have the jock character also appearing in Sony’s earlier films and also the pointless love interest just there to motivate the main character further.

But what about Sony Pictures Animation’s more recent films? Actually, I’d say plenty of the main leads start off as a bit one-dimensional only to gain stronger development overtime (Miles from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a perfect example of that while Zach from the first Goosebumps film is that but with even less development). The latter of which joins a cast of bland role-models that I can easily forget, alongside Bo from The Star.

To make the main characters better, the sequels nobody asked for ended up exploring more of the main lead including the other ones to make them more fascinating than ever, whether it’d be looking more at Flint’s past in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 or talk about the origin of Smurfette in both The Smurfs 2 and Smurfs: The Lost Village.

That’s just one character from the movie, but there’s more. Speaking of more, SPA’s movies have a HUGE cast of characters which some of them having enough screen time to show a moment of glory for themselves. And with that being said, the movie would deliver depth into their personalities and characteristics of who they are and for the most part they work decently.

Unfortunately, there might be too many of them where it just makes them feel pointless, which includes a good chunk of the animals from the Open Season movies and Drac’s friends in Hotel Transylvania. However, there is at one point where the cast is too big but it makes sense and that would be Spider-Verse’s case since it wants to elaborate and explore more of the other Spider-Mans. After all, it is called “Into the Spider-Verse”.

Of the big cast of characters, there would often be a butt-monkey within much of Sony Pictures Animation’s movies who are there to serve as running gags. You know, to spice up the humor? There were some that really work due to variety such as the bunnies from the Open Season movies and the singing birds from Peter Rabbit, but then you have characters like the zombie employees from Hotel Transylvania whose appearances are predictable as their gullible and dumb outcome just don’t work.

What Sony Pictures Animation would do in order to improve the character development of our main characters is by chemistry. By that, it would usually include characters with contrasting characteristics fighting at first due to a disagreement, but they soon to later adapt to each other where it makes them get used to each other. It would include an energetic character who is bothering the practical and determined character wanting to make sure his motive goes the way he planned, but as their bond improved as the latter realized something the former did was useful, he/she ended up getting some development on the way. This is how I ended up liking characters like Boog from Open Season and Dracula from Hotel Transylvania more due to that; they’re written to understand other people.

Verdict: As Sony Pictures Animation crafted pretty bland and forgettable characters at first with pretty similar characteristics, the amount of depth, development, and chemistry put within these characters help make them more relatable and interesting.
FINAL THOUGHTS

The scorecard says that the studio is very hit-miss with its content. The review also says that the studio is very hit-miss with its content. It looks like Sony Pictures Animation knows how to make a movie good and also how to make a movie bad. They know how to make a film good by making it really funny alongside adding it with great creativity and action while also know how to mess up its potential by being boring, pretty contrived, and plain redundant. What would I say about Sony Pictures Animation in summary form? I think I already said it, but not quite to the fullest I desired.
It really depends on what Sony Pictures Animation would craft. At one hand, it can be a harmless and funny movie with excellent creativity and world building and well-detailed and colorful animation that might as well be ahead of its time, but on the other hand, the studio experiments too much with a product that almost completely wastes its potential by being clichéd and dull, be unconvincingly cheap and lazy, carry pointless things like product placement without clarifying their purpose or don’t care if the actors don’t put effort into their acting that it all becomes something underwhelming.
Although Sony Pictures Animation is one thing and not multiple reincarnations, there is no final rating for the studio as a whole. Let’s just say that it depends on whether or not if the movie’s good or bad because I believe that’s what a typical film company’s library is; a big mixed bag so it’s no surprise that the final rating is obvious. For me, I'd rather rate franchises than entire companies because their library is often distinct from one another.

Epilogue: Not bad for a movie scorecard? There will slowly be more overtime as my passion towards movie is growing and since there are a couple of live-action movies in this scorecard, it’ll hint something that’s coming ahead since this is only one of the first live-action scorecards although not all of it is live-action. And one last thing; I never mentioned Arthur Christmas or The Pirates! Band of Misfits in the description not counting the history section and do you know why? Well, since they’re Aardman properties and that Sony basically distributed them, both films feel really different from Sony Pictures Animation’s other films and more towards Aardman media. If I review Aardman someday, perhaps I’ll talk about these films more.